To Save and Enslave
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: As it's bound to be, Ichigo falls into the hands of Aizen and his minions. For convenience, they're chopping his head off. But that's not gonna happen, is it? Because someone is having a few problems with that. GrimmIchi One-shot


Say, I should put my own thoughts aside and head straight to the facts; I was surrounded by morons of all shapes and sizes and there was no escaping from here. What I could do, however, was to make it as clear as fucking day that they were making life so difficult for me.

"Ulquiorra, bastards aren't allowed in my room-"

"-Kurosaki Ichigo has been captured. As it goes without saying, he's a dead man." Ulquiorra Scheiffer informed me without the slightest intention to solicit permission or invitation to barge into my goddamn room.

"…"

"Anything to say, Grimmjow?"

"Fuck off."

He disappeared from whence he had come, without as much as wondering what I could have made of his continual presence. In all likelihood, I had all the reasons to accuse the bastard of something as scandalous as attempted rape or something. But more importantly…

…they were gonna fuck the kid over, like no two ways about it, and no one was to fuck that shinigami kid over other than me.

Whatever.

As in the case of more sensible individuals, I could just stay in bed for the meantime and leave things as they were. Unfortunately, though, being sensible was something I didn't exercise on a regular basis.

Three minutes later,

"What's cooking?" I found myself asking a question bound to tarnish that which I had been really famous for; not giving a damn hoot about anything.

"Why, Grimmjow-chan, we're putting your archrival's neck on the chopping block. You should really see how it's done." Gin was saying, with a sort of enthusiasm you wouldn't see on anyone else's face.

For some reason, weariness was besetting me like wildfire. I looked down on the platform to find there an extraordinary sight. Kurosaki Ichigo, one who had given me an eyesore of a goddamn scar across my chest, was smirking like a devil in ways he could use and take pleasure in, if he wanted death more than anything. In contrast, his wrists were bound by a painful-looking knot and behind him was Yammy, carrying a giant axe, as if to exhibit a primitive execution.

This was predictable.

"Yawn. He's gonna mess this up; the fat-ass will." Szayel told Stark, whose head was lolling on his sides like some drunken fool on a pub somewhere. Since the fucking Primera, as always, couldn't do anything decent on a boring day except to keep his eyes and trap shut, there was never a chance for him to notice that Octava was actually one breath away from success, that was smuggling him out of this shithole to stuff them both in a fucking cubicle somewhere.

Across the bleachers where I sat, Ulquiorra was looking more alive than ever, as though developing real expression, if that was possible at all. And then, like a predator, his gaze charged at me. The bottom line was I gave him the finger.

In no time, Tousen, who defied a world so full of changes by being a permanent bastard, started reciting something which sounded like excerpts from a bastard's daily manual.

"Kurosaki Ichigo is here today to receive that which he deserves; death by beheading."

Duh, as if a portable guillotine-coupled with a wooden platform-wasn't enough to convey the goddamn message. At this point, I started about sizing up how miserable I was sentenced to be in the preceding minutes, especially in discovering I was surrounded by idiots and lowlifes. In any case, Tousen went on,

"If anyone votes for this man's pardon, speak now before time robs you of the opportunity."

I suppose it would be a good point to narrate the story. Earlier this day, they had deployed a whole team of jerks, all of whom maniacs in every manner of judgment, to capture a particular orange-head Shinigami. In the course of twenty-four hours, the helpless shrimp had been, in a distant way, a dead-on-arrival case. Another hour passed and he had been made to skirt the stupid gallows. The sum and point of all this was, later on, Tousen would go yakking about _pardoning _the captive. Now if there had been a purpose in hauling the shinigami's ass all the way here from the start, you tell me the whole story 'cos I was sure I knew a good deal to miss the fucking point.

"I do."

It was Noitora. Seen from a distance, the bastard was tending to show his similarities with a fucking drag I could just murder.

"Anyone else?" Tousen inquired. "No one? Very well. We shall now proceed to the execution."

To no one's surprise, Noitora had this fiendish grin on his face, reveling in triumph for that one slate of anguish he might've given the Kurosaki kid. In my goddamn honest opinion, humor and crudeness was easy to tell apart. Even a vulgar dude like me could understand that. Thus if anyone should fail to, well, shoot me.

The next thing I knew was Yammy had the axe raised up the sky, looking as ugly as ever with that maniacal grin.

"Stop!"

"…"

I scrambled around and started about locating the fucking bastard who protested, just in time to realize…

…it was…

…me.

In a land full of violence and hatred and suffering, anyone would be bound to have enough. And in a land where I was hailed as a strong, handsome, fierce, destructive, merciless jock, it seemed beside any standard of logic that I'd put to halt a grand show from which I was supposed to gain delight.

"Is there a problem, Grimmjow?"

It wasn't much of a shock that Tousen would ask something so inconvenient at a time like this. There was a suspecting glint in his eyes and, as I chose to think, a disagreeing knot on his brows, convincing me that he could actually see how much I was hating him at the moment. Due to the defects of nature in endowing me with good fortune, all I could answer was,

"Yeah, Ulquiorra is staring at me… like a pervert."

Eyebrows traveled higher up the foreheads above them.

"I am not. And even if I were, would that tally with suspending Kurosaki's fate?" Ulquiorra, the guilty bastard, denied with a sort of indignity you'd witness from someone entirely innocent, which he was not.

"Yeah, it would, moron."

"How so?"

"I might come down with an erectile dysfunction, moron."

"How so, when yours was never functional to begin with?"

"Fuck you-"

"Grimmjow Jaggerjack, Ulquiorra Scheiffer, you may settle accounts outside the room." Tousen cut in, as though the day couldn't end without him contributing to the world his joy-killing spree.

And now that I had mentioned it, Ulquiorra really did start to stare at me like a pervert. But since the disruption had been partially taken care of, what with Tousen's success to silence me, Yammy once again hoisted himself nearer to the Kurosaki kid, perhaps exploring better stances with which he could neatly cut the life out the kid. Five seconds should do it. Five insurmountable seconds whose highlight would consist of someone's head rolling off the floor-

"Goddammit, this should stop!"

"…"

It took a long while and quite a length of confused murmurings for the entire crowd to concentrate its attention to where it should.

It was…

…me-again. It just happened. Smack-just like that or something else.

Yammy drew back, as Kurosaki's life was prolonged by seconds.

Godfuckingdammit. With something like this, this shit happening to me, there probably was much truth in my predilection that _nothing _was wrong with me; it was life and reality that were wrong in every goddamn place.

"What's the matter this time, Grimmjow?" Tousen asked me, perhaps having come to a similar conclusion that something was _really _wrong with the world.

"I think, well… Szayel and Stark should get a fucking room."

"Why?" Octava asked for his sake.

"Why? If this goes on, someone's gonna end up pregnant, I tell ya."

"Before your mouth goes about shooting idiotic ideas, know that we're using protection-"

"That will do, Szayel." Tousen interjected, as Szayel's scowls afforded him the slightest of distractions. He turned to me, never failing to stress the calm contempt he had always held for me, "Grimmjow, I wish you'd come to terms with the matter at hand. Kurosaki Ichigo will die here, and there's not a thing nor a person in this world that can prevent it. Now, Yammy, please proceed."

Frankly, I would've preferred a less standard advice, and, as a fact, the sequence of events was getting increasingly imaginable along with the clock's ticking and Ulquiorra's continuous journey to total bastardization. Just what the fuck was he looking at? To avoid the bastard's gaze, I lent my attention to the commotion below. Yammy was pushing eagerly forward, axe in hand, his cautious movements contrasting with his brutish appearance. Once again the blade was lifted, disposing me at once to a singular thought, that life was-

"Really, someone should put a stop to this shit!"

"…"

Well. We all wind up unfortunate at some point in our lives, and maybe I was exactly in a state where all I could do was the very reverse of all things intellectual. So, accepting through time, I learned that one could really go insane in this place.

Sure enough, I mean, if you haven't predicted it yet, it was _me _again, of all fucking pricks.

"Grimmjow, I expect you have a better set of excuses than the daily routines we're all used to observing." Tousen told me sharply, with this useless emphasis in every word as if he couldn't fasten a single thought in my skull. But that was the least of it, because in like no time flat, every mouth in the room was motoring away in ways that could induce murderous tendencies on anyone. In spite of that, I took no steps to welch from my crisis. So I heard myself say,

"Er, Halibel's tits are showing. She's right across me, by the way, and-"

"Clearly, and without confusion of anything else, you're trying to put this execution to either postponement or permanent expulsion, and the manner by which you're trying to accomplish such is, I must say, futile. As I have earlier said, this boy will die here."

I gauged that I shouldn't lose conviction under these very awkward circumstances, unless of course embarrassment was my lifelong dream. Thus I spoke, my voice rising above what little stillness there was in the room,

"Jesus Christ, people, do you have buttons for eyes? She has to be a D-size-"

"May I suggest something?" Ulquiorra butted in.

"Go ahead." came Tousen's consent.

"Let's have another round of votes from the Espada members from which we can derive an agreement; that is, whether the Shinigami boy is to receive death or its opposite."

"That wouldn't do, Ulquiorra. This boy has proven himself to be more than just a threat. As such, there appears to be no reason to let him live." Tousen reasoned. As far as any man got the right to say, I was sure his explanations were getting _repetitive_. And, yeah, I got it; we were running a judicial system, not a charity ward.

"But surely, Lieutenant Tousen, this is a hall wherein justice prevails over all things else, or so the name Justice Hall suggests. In line with that, Grimmjow, from the start, has been prattling away with random, rather emotional, outbursts and other such desperate _stupidities _just to intercept the boy's head from the block. And frankly, some of us would rather be spared this patience-pushing _nonsense_. What this signifies is, his attempts are a grief in disguise. He doesn't want Kurosaki Ichigo to receive the axe for a profound reason, just as much as it is obvious. So, please, give us that which is ours; our right to vote."

Alright. He had just provided himself an excellent chance of getting murdered. This bitch was going down. Really, I felt myself summoned to get a good killing, particularly from a fucking monochromatic Cuatro Espada, aka the Fucking Fucker, who just about made me a third degree murderer in the making, but I couldn't quite stand having physical contact with him even for a second, which would make homicide pretty tricky-

"Alright. You stated that well enough, Cuatro Espada, leaving me no other option but to honor your wishes." Tousen was saying as though he was made of nothing other than his scholarly nature. The pretense continued, "All of you who wish to grant Kurosaki Ichigo pardon, please raise your hands."

Like hell I'd raise my arm! These people just didn't get it. They failed to understand that I could put up with them as little as I wanted to make out with Gin, and that this comical exhibition from me had nothing to do with Kurosaki, _duh_. And if-

Holy shit. All nine of them, them Espada morons, had their palms up the air. This was the part where I should start about rolling off the floor with hysterical sniggering. So it was they who were nurturing this disgusting, bizarre endearments to the boy, NOT ME, and they were using me as a scapegoat. That was cheap.

As the outcome was appalling in every sense of the adjective, Tousen just had to say,

"As we have an astounding odds of nine against one, I am granting this man pardon, whom we have captured with much sacrifice, all for the sake of justice, for which we have always labored just as hard to maintain and strengthen. However, we must endeavor to put this affair to its own light. Why, Espada, do you choose to set this man free, when he is the very tide against which we struggle?"

I should ask these nine hoodlums the same. As much as I was willing to exhaust all my intellect to fathom-

"To shut Grimmjow up." Stark, whose title went something like Grande El Puta,prostitute of some sort, barreled.

"To silence this fool of a chatterbox." Barragan was pointing his finger at me.

"For a moment of peace within Sexta's presence, something that rarely happens." Halibel answered.

"Because I've had enough of Jaggerjack's tomfoolery to prefer a day in hell than to tuck myself in the same room with him." Cuatro fucker yakked out the best of his wisecracking bullshit.

"Well, I damn bet this faggot's only goal is to jump into bed with that brat over there." Quinto was clearly trying to sound disinterested, giving away how much his brain was overflowing with all the shit he had accumulated from watching gay porn.

"Love conquers all." Septima could be very sentimental about anything, but he could just drop dead.

"Grimmjow should discover the wonders of sex firsthand because he's a sex-starved neurotic." That clearly was a lie, just as much as Octava's neck solely existed for a good, violent wringing.

"Frankly, I couldn't care less. But the moment I realized Grimmjow was never gonna clam his trap shut until he managed to snatch the boy off our hook, well, that was when I started to care." Wow. I didn't know a creature as pitiable as Noveno could exist in a world where someone as hot as me was skirting the hallways.

"You don't need to tell me that if I succeeded in separating this kid's head from his body I'd be next in line for decapitation, if ya know what I mean. Er, that's right, Grimmjow, I ain't laying a finger on this boy, and you don't have to look at me like that, just so you know." If you could decipher what Yammy was jabbing about, I'd be feeling sorry for you for being in the same category as that blithering idiot.

I wanted to strangle everyone. What with all the nasty invectives hurled at the defenseless me, the most I could do was to give everyone the fucking finger and-

"Grimmjow, thanks."

It was Kurosaki, relishing himself with a comfort he invented for himself and believed in. I mean, you could thank me for being good-looking and giving you a reason for a hard-on, but you could save your smile for something else. Damn, why was he smiling like that at me?

"What for? I was the only one who didn't raise my damn hand, fool. I mean, if I had a choice I'd-I'd bury my hand down the sand and-like-I wouldn't want you alive and kicking-like-over my dead body. Jeez."

He was still smiling, not knowing that not a soul would be better for it if he grinned all day long.

"That doesn't make you any less my savior."

"Savior my ass."

He sighed, his former graveness falling away in a deep oblivion, almost fooling me with his horsing around. He turned around, nodded at all them morons as though they were the mighty Olympians from up high whose mercy had kept him alive. And then he said to me, of all fucking pricks,

"You saved my life, hence it's yours. Do what you want with it."

What was that? Just like that I won a fucking slave? I blinked and started imagining things. Well, that wasn't too bad. Maybe I should start with a few info about myself, and maybe show him my room…

… which had a bed in it…

… that fitted for two…

…I mean, he was my slave now…

…man, what was I thinking?

**END**


End file.
